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My daughter goes to a Catholic school. Monday they learned about Advent. Tuesday a note came home saying it would be "nice" if we applied what they learned at school at home.

Only problem is we played hooky on Monday and took her to Disneyland for her birthday. Also we (The Housebound and I) are bad Catholics. (Although to be fair, we were brought up to be just so-so Catholics). So, we don't know what Advent is. I tried looking it up, but what comes up is complicated; the grey matter can't take it in at 12 midnight. Only thing I gleaned was that it starts on the 2nd.

Please, is there anyone out there who can give a simple explanation on Advent and how we are supposed to celebrate it? I don't want my kid thinking that her parents are dorks.

According to present [1907] usage, Advent is a period beginning with the Sunday nearest to the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle (30 November) and embracing four Sundays. The first Sunday may be as early as 27 November, and then Advent has twenty-eight days, or as late as 3 December, giving the season only twenty-one days.

With Advent the ecclesiastical year begins in the Western churches. During this time the faithful are admonished

to prepare themselves worthily to celebrate the anniversary of the Lord's coming into the world as the incarnate God of love, thus to make their souls fitting abodes for the Redeemer coming in Holy Communion and through grace, and thereby to make themselves ready for His final coming as judge, at death and at the end of the world.

thats all from the catholic encyclopedia...

i love it, a jew from israel teaching about advent, what a riot...as the succesful advertising campaigbn of the NBA goes...i love this game!

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"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night." Woody Allen

I always though of Advent as the preparation for the birth of Jesus and Christmas. We would have an Advent Wreath with the three white candles and one purple/rose colored candle, which would be lit at evenig and burn through dinner. Each week another candle would be lit, so that at the last week, all four would burn. We had a little booklet from which prayers were read. I think the purple candle is for the third week, but I forget now.

The best was the Advent Calendar, which my aunt from Germany would send every year. The little numbered doors would have lovely German chocolates hidden behind them. We would get to open the door corresponding to the date each morning and enjoy that chocolate. Reminds me, I have to get my advent calendar out and fill it. My husband loves that chocolate.

David Burton
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 05/28/01
Posts: 1759
Loc: Coxsackie, New York

OK, from one not very good Catholic to the rest of you, Advent is basically the four Sunday’s before Christmas and yes there is a wreath or candlestick with five places for candles and you light one for each Sunday that passes until on Christmas eve, you get to light them all. The Advent Calendar is a really nice thing, some are hand made, you fill them with chocolates (hard centers are best) and you should give one to each child who has decided to try and be a good little Catholic. We had a nephew who wasn’t really into getting anything out of the daily readings and meditations that go with it, all he wanted were the candies, so he broke open all the doors and ate everything in a matter of minutes (piggy!). Advent Calendars (and everything else nice) work far better with little girls. (I’m so glad I got to raise girls not boys ).

As for all the ceremony, etc. in Christendom, there are “high” churches and I guess you’d call them “low” churches. The former are distinguished by a set pattern of the service called a liturgy (this is a Greek word for a ceremonial series of dramatic actions usually performed to invoke a particular pagan deity and usually paid for by some rich patron). Hence one has “liturgical churches;” Catholic, Orthodox, Episcopal, Lutheran, some Methodists, some Presbyterians, and those who just have some hymn singing, an offering the sermon and out you go, oh and sometimes after everything there’s a bit of faith healing too, amazingly wonderful stuff.

I love Christianity’s variety. When I need a break from the everywhere always the sameness of Catholicism, oh it’s wonderful to be able to go anywhere at all and be able to follow the service, it’s nice to occasionally pop into a faith healer church, or a church that is so plain that it hardly counts as a church, plain belief is often times better than embroidered belief (as among the best Catholics). I genuinely suppose that were any of these sects to be absent, somehow the universal body of Christ would suffer for it.

Enjoy your Christmas holidays my fellow Christians, and I shall try not to make my many Jewish friends feel uncomfortable by taking part in many of their time honored customs at this time of year.

Many good tidings to all of you and may your hearts be merry as your minds are mild.

Warning: Wreaths and candles are a particularly dangerous mix. Be very aware of fire safety if you mix them. If a candle falls over or is allowed to burn too long it can quickly ignite the wreath with predictable consequences. Also, children may decide to light the candles themselves.

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"How, Monsieur, you care not for music? You do not play the clavecin? I am sorry for you! You are indeed condemming yourself to a dull old age!" - Fouquet